I was not impressed by howling dogs at first.  The mental hospital feel of the first rooms was oppressive and yet not engaging, more off-putting than anything else.  The sort of monotony of the initial world lends itself better to a novel, I feel.  Even in the most dull of novels, one is spatially aware that there is an end to the tale and that one is moving closer to it.  In howling dogs, however, this awareness is not permitted and that I found to be one of the greatest flaws with the story and quite distracting.

I am not, by nature, an impatient reader, yet there were several times at the start of howling dogs that I had all but determined to close the window and choose a new twine creation.  Nothing seemed to be happening, each return to the little room forced the same routine–eat, drink, bathe, clean-up, occasionally glance at the picture, and return the the activity room.

Further, the initial jaunts in the activity room were not captivating enough to truly hold my attention.  I hated the feeling of not actually getting anywhere or learning anything.  For all I knew, the game could go on for days like this with hundreds of possible visions possible.  Other than slight changes, there was little to suggest that you weren’t simply back at the start each time one returned to “reality.”  Even these slight changes could have been produced with a code that randomly selected from a few different results on each reload of the starting rooms.

When the trash disposal finally broke I had all but given up hope of being able to actually “finish” the game.  I’m not entirely sure why finishing was suddenly of such importance for me, but in this story it very much was.  I wanted something to happen–perhaps find a means of escape from the rooms that didn’t involve being drugged? I admit, I spent far too long hoping I could jump or wriggle my way down the trash chute, if just for a change of scenery.  In the end, the trash disposal breaking was enough to suggest there was an end in sight.

And so, while I was terribly bored at first, I’m glad I stuck it out, for it was an interesting story.  I feel the start could have been far better.  Some indication sooner that one wasn’t in a continual loop of visions would have been appreciated, and yet, having finished it, I do appreciate that the monotony was done with a purpose and set a tone.  I was truly impressed with the blurred lettering on some of the pages–particularly the ones that blurred as you moved your mouse. There was something both illusive and compelling in that effect that seemed to me to capture the essence of the text.

Further, the later visions were fascinating–particular the one concerning the empress, the ambassador, and dreams.  Once the visions became as fully fleshed out as those–the turning point for me being when the murder occurs–I felt myself being drawn forward by curiosity and my early frustrations forgotten.  However, as a lesson to take away from this experience, I would suggest that one either keep the momentum going from the start or give the reader something more compelling than trees and sunlight and sleep to tantalize and encourage them.  I would like to experiment in creating a twine tale like howling dogs which does not so much offer choices as it does encourage you to select the word one is most drawn to in a text.  While one seemed to inhabit the main character’s mind, it still felt more like a text than a game–you simply followed the words that most compelled you to their conclusion.

P.S. Was anyone else who read this particular tale caught off guard by the realization (for me, during the murder) that the main character is a woman?